Welcome to the new BBJ on the web

Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 22:00

According to Russell Ackoff, an influential systems theorist the content of the human mind can be classified into five categories: data, information, knowledge, understanding and wisdom. The difference between these is poignant: a piece of data is merely a fact, while information is processed data: it answers the classic journalistic questions of "who", "what", "where", and "when”.

During most of its history, these are the questions that BBJ on the web – as any other basic news source – tried to answer. However, times have changed. Simply getting data and information is increasingly unsatisfactory. The spread of computers, and especially the internet, has brought a proliferation of data and information that is at one very freeing and very frustrating. When you can find the answer to anything online, what do you ask?

Knowledge, which entails the application of data and information, and answers the “how” question, thus becomes important, especially in times of crisis or post-crisis growth, when gaining knowledge before the others becomes question of boom or doom for any company. This is where the new BBJ on the web would like to serve you, our readers.

To help you deal with the deluge of data and information, we are now mobilizing our resources with an aim of giving you high added-value knowledge in our reporting on business and finance in Hungary. This means that in addition to our high-quality English newsstream on current business affairs, we hope to give you much more to take home with you to ponder upon: new trends, changes, and a careful deliberation of where current processes and progress could lead. We hope to spark thoughts that will make you see things in a new light, and inspire you to formulate new directions for your business.

If we are very lucky, we will also be able to give you understanding (answers to the question “why”), which could set you on the road to wisdom. I hope that we will be able to help you enough that you will feel the small subscription fee that the BBJ on the web will ask of its regular readers well worth the price. (You will only need to subscribe after the end of the current trial period.)

In addition to more information and knowledge, we will also be providing more of an opportunity for you to join important market players and experts in discussions of the most important events in the business life of Hungary via our blogs. Initially, we will start out with a blog on the Hungarian presidency of the EU and an opinion blog, both of which would be happy to receive your comments and thoughts. Later on, these blogs will be joined by further topics that the international business scene in Hungary finds important.

We wish you good reading.

Melinda Tünde Dóra, editor-in-chief and the staff of the Budapest Business Journal

Turnover via electronic payment methods continued to rise strongly in 2017, according to data released on Monday by the National Bank of Hungary (MNB). The payment card acceptance network grew by 25%, while 83% of POS terminals supported contactless payment.

Toy stores expect record revenues this year in the Easter period, according to distributors. Although web store revenues are growing, most parents are still buying Easter presents in traditional stores.

Hungarian shipping company Mahart Zrt. will soon call a public procurement tender for the construction of a HUF 2.2 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at the Port of Csepel on the Danube in the south of Budapest, business daily Világgazdaság reported on Monday.

In a surprise move, the National Bank of Romania has rejected a request for approval by the Romanian unit of Hungaryʼs OTP Bank to acquire 99.28% of Banca Românească from the National Bank of Greece, the lender said in a disclosure posted on the website of the Budapest Stock Exchange (BÉT) early on Monday.

Revenues of the local unit of German automobile manufacturer Audi edged up 1% to EUR 7.136 billion in 2017. Capital expenditures were up 45% at EUR 442 million last year, while the local unitʼs headcount climbed 5.8% to 12,307.

The National Bank of Hungary (MNB) allocated HUF 50 billion of its monetary policy interest rate swaps (MIRS) designed to flatten the yield curve at a tender on Wednesday, state news wire MTI reported.

The Monetary Council of the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) said it would continue to use its extended set of monetary policy instruments, without making any mention of future "fine-tuning," in the minutes from its policy meeting on February 27.

Manuscripts by the 19th century Hungarian composer Ferenc (Franz) Liszt, long thought lost, have been returned to the Liszt Memorial Museum and Research Center after being discovered in a private collection. The music is closely related to Hungary and the Revolution of 1848.

Erbslöh Hungária, a unit of German automotive group WKW, will spend HUF 14 billion to build a 1,500 square-meter production hall and install new surface treatment technology, increasing capacity, in Győr (121 km northwest of Budapest).